


Pet Rock

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:51:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg Lestrade receives some old family photographs, and Mycroft Holmes has an unexpected reaction to seeing Greg's first pet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pet Rock

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Did you ever have a goldfish as a kid?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/6919) by Macpye. 



Greg Lestrade picked up the parcel on his desk, recognized his sister’s writing, and was dialing his mobile before he even sat down. “Hey, Sophie. ’S Greg. What’s this parcel from you?”

“Oh, hi, Greggy. Great, they got there. I just found some old photos when I was cleaning the other day, though you might want to show them to your new man.”

Greg ran his pen under the flap of the envelope. “God, Soph, if this is a stack of shitty clothes and bad hair -”

“Now come on, would I do that?”

“Yes.”

“No. Send them to you? At work? Where you could pretend you never got them, and not have to show him?”

He was already flipping through the stack of photos. The colours seemed so washed out now, but he recognized the images well enough not to care, and grinned. “These are _ancient!_ Where did you find these? Does Mum know you’ve taken them?”

“They’re just copies I had made. It’s fine. I just thought you’d like to have them, really.”

“Thank you. That’s actually very kind of you.” He shuffled past some of the images, smiling at the memories, the beach scenes with pails and shovels, running around the garden, standing by the front door in winter coats with impossibly small wellies, the hall table nearly eye level.

“No need to sound so surprised, little brother. Give us a ring when you’re coming down next, yeah? The kids haven’t shut up about you two since Christmas.”

“It might be a while,” he began, but she cut him off.

“Don’t even try, Greg. Even the PM gets more time off than you do, and you can’t just leave us all hanging like this. We’re your _family_ , for God’s sake. Nobody was killed when you were here for Christmas, were they?”

“Well, actually -”

“I _meant_ no one killed you over Mycroft, thank you very much. Now stop playing silly buggers and get a wiggle on, eh?”

Two minutes on the phone with his sister and Greg was already feeling he’d had all the family he could take for the next month, but he swallowed his snide retort. “I’ll do my best. Anyway, thanks again, Soph.”

“Cheers.”

He slipped the envelope into the pocket of his jacket and had almost forgotten about it by the time Mycroft came in that evening. Almost.

“Hey, how did it go?” he called from the sofa as he heard the umbrella tap into the stand by the door.

There was a half-voiced sigh before Mycroft came into view, his navy-blue pinstriped suit slightly creased. For Mycroft, it was the equivalent of a cry for help. Greg flinched and had opened his mouth to speak before Mycroft cut him off with a languid hand. “No, no. It went well. It took a very long time to do so, but I have once again succeeded in steering the Minister away from insanity. Honestly, a counter-suit. I ask you.” He sighed again, shaking his head, then focused on Greg with a smile. “Well, you look happy. Spoken to your family, have you?”

Greg took a deep breath before he tried to answer. “I know you and Sherlock enjoy doing that, but one of these days I’m going to do you for invasion of privacy.” 

He wasn’t at all surprised when Mycroft simply smiled and sat down next to him. “What have you got here?” he asked, nodding at the photos.

“Sophie sent these. Dunno how she found half of them. Some I don’t even remember. But she thought you’d like to see them.”

“And you’ve already vetted them for me,” Mycroft said, accepting the stack from Greg’s hand. “How disappointing.”

“Oi,” Greg said, leaning back and settling his shoulder against Mycroft’s so he could see which ones he looked at and provide commentary. “I think I was about twelve there. Sophie must have taken that one from the front window.

Mycroft smiled slightly, his thumb drifting across Greg’s face in the image, not quite incidentally. “So young.”

“If you’re just going to be rude, I’m going to take them back,” Greg said firmly, making Mycroft smile again. “I wasn’t born with grey hair, you know.”

Mycroft turned to look at him, making Greg run a hand through his hair, a little more self-conscious than he’d meant to be. “Pity,” Mycroft told him. “You might have started a trend.”  

Greg snorted, but Mycroft had turned back to the photos, moving on to the next. Christmas dinner, all of them in terrible jumpers and paper hats from crackers. Greg laughed, realizing Mycroft had already defused his self-consciousness simply by not rising to it. “I don’t even know years, on some of these. I can guess, a bit, but...” He shook his head. Mycroft had moved on, to one of him and his brother on top of a hill somewhere on a family trip, then Greg making a silly face at the camera to show off a missing tooth, one of him wearing a plastic bobby helmet he’d received as a birthday gift from his uncle, all of the siblings splashing in waves at the beach.

“No family pets,” Mycroft commented, pausing a little longer on one of Greg with Marion sitting on his shoulders under an apple tree, half-clinging to the branches to keep her balance. 

“Nah, never really had one. But oh! Wait!” He took the stack from Mycroft and flipped through a few more, pulling one out. “Unless you count this.”

Mycroft accepted the stack back, lifting the top one off and letting his other hand drift to rest on his lap. He stared at the image. The photo showed a small boy, five or six years old, standing on a garden path with his back to the camera, and yet recognizably Greg, even so. It was clear he wasn’t aware of the photo being taken. He was wearing a jumper with patches on the elbows, and a pair of shorts. Going by the light and the plants along the path, Mycroft guessed it was late summer. But what had captured his attention was the string trailing down from the hand of this tiny Greg, ending in a tangle of knots around a stone.

Greg was staring at the picture, too, but with a grin on his face. “Yeah, I kept at Mum that summer to let me get a dog, but she wasn’t having any. I think I spent a week pretending I had one,” Greg said, remembering Marion and Sophie’s teasing.

Greg realized just before Mycroft lowered the photo that the hand holding it had begun to shake, and he glanced up into Mycroft’s face expecting to see him supressing a laugh. He didn’t mind Mycroft laughing at him. From more than forty years later, it was easy to laugh at the small boy he had been. But Mycroft wasn’t laughing.

Greg only got a glimpse of his partner’s flushed face as he bolted up from the sofa.

Mycroft had been quietly enjoying the pictures of Greg’s youth, at once admiring and envying the camaraderie of the four siblings, seeing the gentle protectiveness of the older sisters and the confidence of the two brothers, determined to protect their sisters in turn. He’d been quite struck by the photo of Greg supporting his sister, two years his elder, while they were picking apples. He could almost hear Greg’s determined boasting. “I’m not small anymore, Mari, come on! I can hold you! Just climb on!” And of course he was right, and so very proud of this, even as his sister kept hold of the tree in her own doubt.

Then Greg had handed him the photo of him and his imaginary pet. He’d tried not to think about it, but the quiet determination, the stoutness of heart, his self-reliance and the way he would have been deaf to all taunts, it was too much for Mycroft. So much of the man he loved was already apparent in this tiny child from so many years ago, and Greg did not change. Greg always found his way through, if he set his mind to something. He had wanted a puppy, and the world hadn’t agreed, so he had simply determined that he _did_ have one.

Mycroft clenched his fists even as he ignored Greg’s voice calling after him. He tried to foster his anger; at himself, for slipping so far as to let Greg see him so unmanned, for upsetting Greg by being so, at the world for not granting the wishes of small, stubborn children, at time itself for not allowing him to reach back and hug that child to him, assure him that it would all end happily and grant his every wish. He knew it would have been a disgusting indulgence if he had had the power to do so, and his Greg might never have happened, with such indulgence. 

Too soon, far too soon, Greg was behind him, seeing the pacing, seeing his posture, his clenched fists. He looked up at the walls, the ceiling, willing his eyes to dry before any tears spilled, fighting to breathe slowly, clenching his jaw to stop the trembling.

“Hey, hey, what is it?” Greg said quietly, one hand on the corner of the wall, unsure if he should even be witnessing this. He knew every intimate centimeter of this man’s body and had accompanied him on clandestine operations in foreign countries, but this was the most vulnerable moment he’d ever seen for Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft shook his head, unwilling to speak yet, turning away in frustration and setting one clenched fist against the wall in the most beautifully controlled fury Greg had ever seen. He had never seen any Holmes incapable of speech before. He held out a hand helplessly. “Mycroft, whatever it is, I’m sorry...”

Unexpectedly, Mycroft laughed. Just once, turning his long, pale neck and glancing at Greg over his shoulder. “Oh, _Greg_.” He shook his head, unable to say more.

“I dunno what this is, but just talk to me, hey? I’m here. Just let me know what’s wrong.” He took a step closer, even as Mycroft moved another pace away from him.

“No, Greg, _no._ This is all _wrong._ ”

“Not it’s not, sweetheart, no it’s not,” Greg said quietly, deciding. He took another slow step toward Mycroft, his hands out, keeping his voice just above a whisper. Whatever the upset was, it had hit hard and deep, straight past Mycroft’s ever-reasoning mind. The only way to soothe him was to slip past using the same route, going through his hindbrain, using his emotions and not his intellect. “I’m here for you, you know that, hey? We can handle this, whatever it is. Whatever’s wrong, we can get through it. It’s okay.”

Mycroft raised a hand to his face, his back to Greg. He’d stopped pacing only because he’d reached the end of the hallway, and Greg was so close behind him now that there was no room to pass. He pressed his thumb and middle finger on either side of the bridge of his nose, his forefinger pushing against his forehead as though there was an unseen button to switch something off. He took a deep, slow breath, letting Greg’s honeyed, raspy whisper wash over him, ignoring the words, losing himself in the sound.

“No, Greg. I’m fine. It’s all right.” He turned, lowering his hand, making an attempt to smile. It was weak, and he knew it, but Greg accepted the effort, and snared one of his hands. 

“Yeah. Yeah. What was all this about, eh?” Greg reached up and cupped his face, and Mycroft nearly lost it again. Greg didn’t flinch or pull back. If Mycroft didn’t blink at his childhood’s horrible Christmas jumpers, then he wasn’t going to falter in the face of whatever this was.

Mycroft took another long, slow breath, and reached up to grasp the wrist of Greg’s hand on his face. “Gregory, if you are kind to me for one more instant, I shall break your arm.”

Greg did finally blink at that, and laughed, more relieved than he would admit. “Fine, you fucker, if you wanna be like that!” Greg dropped his smile and his eyes hardened, and he moved just that little bit too close to Mycroft, lowering his hand from Mycroft’s face. “What the hell do you call that out there, Holmes? That’s my fucking childhood.” He lifted his chin. “Are you _really_ insulting my pet dog?”

It worked. Mycroft, overwhelmed by too many emotions in too little time, finally laughed. It wasn’t comfortable, and there was more than a little disbelief to it, but Greg was sure the crisis, whatever it was, had passed. He took a step back, staying in his work persona, and held out an arm to direct Mycroft back into the living room, and that worked, too. Greg followed him back to the sofa, where Mycroft sat, and Greg stood in front of him, folding his arms. He nodded at the picture. “In your own time.”

Mycroft swallowed, looking at the photo, but didn’t pick it up. Unconsciously, he crossed his arms on his chest in a mirror of Greg’s pose. “Sit down now, please, Greg.”

Silently, Greg did so, but on the edge of the sofa, half turned so he could face Mycroft.

“I’ve met your family, now. You would have been five then, Chris three, too young to care. Marion seven, following Sophie’s lead as they teased you.” Mycroft paused, swallowed. “About your pet.” 

“But that’s just what siblings _do,”_ Greg said.

“Is it?” Mycroft wondered, meeting Greg’s eyes briefly. Greg didn’t need him to say it. Sherlock was seven years younger, and he knew better than to think childhood in the Holmes family would have been anything approaching normal. Mycroft saw what he was thinking, raised his eyebrows in a bleak shrug, and looked away. “It isn’t envy, though. It’s... _frustration_. I look at that picture, and I see you. Everything you are now, only...smaller. And I want to do anything I can to care for you,” Mycroft went on, shaking his head slowly, “anything at all. God, I have spent a week tidying things up for a Minister who’s been a complete arse, truly devoid of any but the smallest shred of worth, and while his career could very easily have ended today, I have ensured that there will be no by-election for him for at least a year, and God have mercy on his constituents. Last week, I ensured that a mine on another continent remained open, employing all of the region’s labour force so the people wouldn’t be forced to sell their land to a conglomerate that would remove them and...” He trailed off with a hopeless gesture. “I can exercise unreasonable amounts of control over so many events in this vast world, and yet for the one person I would most wish to comfort, I am helpless. It’s such a small thing. The only thing preventing me is time itself. With all of the unholy opportunities I traverse daily, I am completely undone by intangible years. I look at this, and oh, the things I would do for this child. To be able to gather him up, protect him, answer his every wish and whim.” 

Mycroft sighed again, pointedly looking away from Greg and the photos. “Ridiculous, of course. I’d spoil the child, and thereby lose the man. And yet, oh, Gregory, how I long to do so. To reach back along your life, and _love_ you.” Mycroft’s fist clenched again at the word, conveying a depth unreached by physical intercourse, his passion roughening his voice.

Greg sat quietly for a moment, his eyes on his hands folded on his knees. “You do, Mycroft,” he said quietly, and heard Mycroft turn back to look at him. Greg nodded once, to himself. “You do.”

  



End file.
